Tuesday, February 10, 2015

After 7 months of development, the rebelde gold watch took its first breath yesterday afternoon. The emotion that we felt collectively in the workshop was not one of joy or celebration, but rather of relief. The gold case passed the water pressure testing of 10 ATM with flying colours. This is a big step for the world’s smallest watch brand, and also a major investment in not only time and engineering, but also in raw materials. With the price of gold at $40 per gram, extreme caution had to be put into construction, so no material is wasted. On the other hand, no compromise to the water resistance and robustness was made.
The total weight of the watch, including the movement, is 135g, and I can tell you that it feels good. Style-wise, it is identical to the rebelde N Pilots series, with its trademark ribbed bezel.

Note that this piece will come with a Horween Shell Cordovan Horse leather strap. Because of this, the limited numbers of these straps we have are no longer for sale, as they must be reserved for rebelde gold.

Of course, there are still things to be done. We have just ordered a gold maker’s punch – a tool that we will use in stamping our initials on all gold components. The tool will be laser-cut in England by a toolmaker who has been in the business for decades. The gold buckle is not done yet either. But then again, we don’t expect any surprises there.

***Production time frame
The first batch of rebelde gold will be 10 pieces in 18K yellow gold, followed by the batch of 10 pieces in 18k rose gold. Since each case is individually manufactured, piece by piece, we believe that the gold watches will be completed in around 3 to 4 months from now. The gold finished Geneva waves movements are already in stock.

***Price
This has been the most frequently asked question so far, and the one for which we still don’t have a definite answer. The reason for this is that the gold price is fluctuating like crazy, and so is the exchange rate between the AUD and USD. While we are unable to speculate on what the price might be in 3 to 4 months by now, we are very confident that $11,500 is likely to be the price.

We are now ready to take your order. It is obvious that numbers 1 and 10 of each batch will not be available for sale, which leaves us with 8 pieces of each available to rebelde comrades. To reserve your piece, a $1,000 deposit is required, with the balance payable at the time of delivery. We will do our best to accommodate your requests for a specific serial, but really, any number is as good as it gets.

If you are interested, the next step is to check out the watch in person by making an appointment. I would be more than happy to show you the watch, let you try it on, and assess it for yourself.
The other question that may be on your mind is: Are we going to do any more gold watches later in the year? The short answer is that we don’t know. To start a new batch is not just a simple step of clicking a ‘re-order button’. We need to start again completely from scratch, which will take time and be a substantial financial investment in the project.
At the end of the day, it will always be up to you. I have always said that on the day that the last order comes for a rebelde, our brand will end. The brand will only remain alive as long as your orders are coming in. We have no intention of having watches sitting around in stock collecting dust while they wait for potential buyers.

My apologies for the rather poor quality images. As you can imagine, I am really rushing to share this good news with you, but rest assured that the watch does look better in reality than in the photos.
Once again, we thank all rebelde owners and those who follow our project with interest for their support. We are enjoying this journey and we hope that you’re having as much fun as us.